The skid I'm working on has 90° bends on the front & back & is 1/4" thick. I also have an 1/8" bent tranny mount that runs the full width of the skid to add another stiffening member down the middle. I'll be working on it Saturday finally! Will post some pics on Monday in my build if you're interested.

Are you running stock exhaust? Any chance of getting a couple better pics of the cat & the exhaust? These are the areas I need to do a little more research on to make them installation friendly.

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The skid I'm working on has 90° bends on the front & back & is 1/4" thick. I also have an 1/8" bent tranny mount that runs the full width of the skid to add another stiffening member down the middle. I'll be working on it Saturday finally! Will post some pics on Monday in my build if you're interested.

Are you running stock exhaust? Any chance of getting a couple better pics of the cat & the exhaust? These are the areas I need to do a little more research on to make them installation friendly.

I took another look last night and it looks like I could run a piece of angle all the way across towards the back of the skid that I might end up doing. The way you have yours set up sounds like a good idea also, But It might give you an issue hitting the cat if you have it in the factory spot still.

I'm running the stock exhaust but I've moved the muffler towards the center of the jeep several inches by cutting it off, flipping it and rewelding the flange on. The cat however and hanger have not been touched but the hanger is quite tweaked in it's mount as naturally it does not want to be that horizontal. I was looking at it last night and I think adding the angle iron, cutting the cat hanger and repositioning it and making some plates out of 1/4" to raise the motor a bit more. I noticed the fan is VERY close to hitting the bottom of the shroud now. Also planning the cable shifter because although during my testing it appeared to be shifting just fine, during another drive test last night it fought me a bit and I can only imagine how annoyed I'll be on the trail it if won't shift properly. After these tweaks this flat skid should be happy to be there, strong and trouble free.

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I had to cut my cat hanger and shorten it when I installed my low pro mount. Maybe you could do something to that effect, or get a low pro mount to help drop the drivetrain down a little?

The drivetrain is pretty happy with the stock transmission mount surprisingly, the cat hanger would be happier welded on at a slightly different angle although it's height is perfect right now. Drove it to work and am surprised how good it feels, making the aforementioned tweaks will alleviate some stress on the mounts and hopefully restore NVH to near factory levels.

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So I went ahead and cut out some motor mount spacers on the plasma. Not sure if I need all 4 but just incase I made them. This should make the engine height perfect and give me the 1/4 inch more clearance I'd like to have between the front of the skid and the transmission.

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Thanks man, it sure looks good aesthetically and actually just visually made the Jeep look much sleeker. Even my link brackets don't look so low to me anymore. It's nice to be above 18", that seems like kind of the magic number for a decent belly height on a TJ that's not real high, and on a small tire.

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It seems unlikely to bend with the bent lip on both sides, and tight quarters it resides in but I am concerned about that. Room for any bracing would be interesting, there's not really any to be had.

There always is, you just have to try harder. You can flat belly and Atlas and stuff crossmembers in there. So it can be done.
My yellow one has something similar to your flatbelly and with 1" retangular tube welded to it, it will bend when turtled on the belly, had to straighten it a time or two. Try it, if it bends you know what to do, as long as it doesn't pull the nutserts out of the frame you are ok

Well the motor mount lift spacers worked out well, 2 on each side for a total of 3/8ths lift and motor mounts are fairly neutral, and I've increased the space between the trans and skid to avoid any contact at the very front of the skid. I'll tackle the cat hanger next.

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